The Olympia Brewing Company's Wartime Tin Scrap Campaign
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Number 4 December 2017 The Olympia Brewing Company’s Wartime Tin Scrap Campaign Joseph Eberhardt and the Thurston County Blueberry Industry Hydroelectric Power on the Deschutes River Puget Sound ‘Tis the Season: Holiday Newspaper Advertisements of 100 Years Ago $5.00 THURSTON COUNTY HISTORICAL JOURNAL The Thurston County Historical Journal is dedicated to recording and celebrating the history of Thurston County. The Journal is published by the Olympia Tumwater Foundation as a joint enterprise with the following entities: City of Lacey, City of Olympia, City of Tumwater, Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of the Pioneers of Washington/Olympia Chapter, Lacey Historical Society, Old Brewhouse Foundation, Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum, South Sound Maritime Heritage Association, Thurston County, Tumwater Historical Association, Yelm Prairie Historical Society, and individual donors. Publisher Editor Olympia Tumwater Foundation Karen L. Johnson John Freedman, Executive Director 360-890-2299 Lee Wojnar, President, Board of Trustees [email protected] 110 Deschutes Parkway SW P.O. Box 4098 Editorial Committee Tumwater, Washington 98501 Drew W. Crooks 360-943-2550 Janine Gates James S. Hannum, M.D. Erin Quinn Valcho Submission Guidelines The Journal welcomes factual articles dealing with any aspect of Thurston County history. Please contact the editor before submitting an article to determine its suitability for publica- tion. Articles on previously unexplored topics, new interpretations of well-known topics, and personal recollections are preferred. Articles may range in length from 100 words to 10,000 words, and should include source notes and suggested illustrations. Submitted articles will be reviewed by the editorial committee and, if chosen for publication, will be fact-checked and may be edited for length and content. The Journal regrets that authors cannot be monetarily compensated, but they will gain the gratitude of readers and the historical community for their contributions to and appreciation of local history. Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the Olympia Tumwater Foundation Written permission is required to reproduce any part of this publication. Copyright © 2017 by the Olympia Tumwater Foundation. All rights reserved. ISSN 2474-8048 Number 4 Table of Contents December 2017 2 The Olympia Brewing Company’s Wartime Tin Scrap Campaign Megan Ockerman 9 Joseph Eberhardt and the Thurston County Blueberry Industry Rod Cook 15 Hydroelectric Power on the Deschutes River Don Trosper 22 Puget Sound J. G. Parker 42 ‘Tis the Season: Holiday Newspaper Advertisements of 100 Years Ago Jennifer Crooks Back Cover Who/What/Where Is It? On the cover: An advertisement from the December 21, 1917 issue of the Morning Olympian. Joseph Reder, along with business partners such as William A. Phillips, ran grocery stores in Olympia as early as the 1890s. Reder served as head of the homefront Food Administration for Thurston County during World War I. Using Bust- er Brown comic strip characters, the store reminds customers of a Red Cross mem- bership campaign by telling them that only members can shop at their store for the following week. “Fire ahead” means to tell the clerk what items were on a grocery list so that the clerk could fetch the items. Self-service groceries would not begin to operate in the county until the 1920s. See article on page 42. 1 THE OLYMPIA BREWING COMPANY’S WARTIME TIN SCRAP CAMPAIGN Megan Ockerman As the Second World War began to un- products, notably tin and aluminum, fold in Europe in 1939, the United were among the many items that the States prepared to mobilize for war. public was asked to diligently recycle. Despite the American public being Residents of Thurston County met overwhelmingly against intervening in these challenges head on. The largest Europe’s war, Franklin Roosevelt private employer in the county, the thought it necessary to at least aid Olympia Brewing Company (OBC), es- France and Britain with war materials. tablished a scrap metal recycling pro- From 1939 through 1941 production gram that enabled it to remain com- was modest, but this effort grew expo- petitive as a business during the war, nentially after the bombing of Pearl while earning praise from the Wash- Harbor in December 1941.1 Civilian ington State Salvage Committee. industries in the U.S. converted to war manufacturing, eventually churning After Pearl Harbor, American car man- out more material than all the Axis ufacturers switched from production powers combined. However, this of automobiles to tanks, trucks, air- meant that many civilians and indus- plane engines, and guns. The alumi- tries across the nation faced shortages num industry built ships and air- of everyday items that were instead planes. Brass and copper companies channeled into the war effort. Metal made shells, cartridges, bullets, and This label was placed on every bottle of Canada Dry ginger ale, to encourage the consumer to save and recycle metal caps. Image courtesy of Olympia Tumwater Foundation: Olympia Brewing Company, General Files, Subject Files, Tin Can Scrap Campaign, Box 35. 2 eventually some parts of the atomic quered Black Sheet Steel without tin bomb.2 Seen as a morale booster, beer coating. There will be no more beer was one commodity the government cans. Cork disks in crowns will possi- did not want converted into wartime bly be replaced by treated pulp or fi- materials. In fact, breweries had to set bre [sic] disks. Treated paper spots to aside 15% of their output to send to replace the formerly almost universal- servicemen. Still, shortages and ship- ly used aluminum spots, are very sat- ping restrictions had a substantial im- isfactory and are proving probably pact on the brewing industry. During better than aluminum.”4 the early war years, larger companies expanded their sales territories across Fortunately for the brewery, the OBC the country, while smaller local brew- had not yet begun to produce beer in eries began folding from increased cans, so a transition back to bottles competition. Olympia fared better and kegs was not necessary. However, than many breweries. Due in part to in response to the War Production pre-war purchasing decisions, and Board placing restrictions on metal for part adaptability to its limitations, the the use of bottle caps, the OBC began OBC managed to increase its sales a recycling program to help alleviate during the war.3 the shortage. In early 1942, President of the Olym- In addition to collecting cans for mak- pia Brewing Company, Peter G. ing crowns, Schmidt, announced to the company’s stockholders what was in store for “We also use caps manufactured for brewers: us from large used #10 Tin Cans, which we collect. Mr. Adolph D. “Bottle caps, or ‘Crowns’ as they are Schmidt, Sr., V-President and Director called, have undergone changes and of Sales and some members of the more can be expected. In the future all sales staff have been very busy in lo- Crowns will be made only of Lac- cating, securing, and collecting #10 Corks, placed inside the met- al crown, were used to seal a bottle of beer. Later, a “spot” or disc of liner (paper, tin, or other material) was applied to prevent the beer from contact- ing the cork. Photos courtesy of Kenny Yohn, http:// thebottlecapman.com (accessed September 20, 2017). 3 In 1943, women worked at the brewery, reclaiming bottles caps for the war effort. Photo courtesy of Olympia Tumwater Foundation: P15-54. cans from large users of canned foods, of it coming out of junk yards.”5 like hotels, restaurants, logging camps, institutions, etc., and when After the cans were cut by the OBC, you go thru the plant this afternoon the recycled material was sent to bot- you can see how these are handled in tle cap manufacturers to remove the order to derive tinplate from them for tinplate. For previously-used bottle the manufacture of bottle caps, which caps, the OBC re-crimped them at the is produced therefrom for us by the plant. It used a re-crimping system cap manufacturers. Mr. Adolph D. called the “Bates system” and paid Schmidt, Sr., devised some of the #10 royalties to use the system for its Can Cutting Machines and Adolph D. caps. According to Peter G. Schmidt, Schmidt, Jr., Plant Superintendent, “[t]he bottle cap companies tell us that devised and our engineering staff de- ours are about the most perfectly re- signed and constructed most of the formed crowns that they get.”6 The machines and equipment used, much brewery kept this program going until 4 late 1944, when the government an- stockholders at the annual meeting nounced that enough metal had been that, supplied to crown manufacturers and all remaining tin scrap should go to- “It is incumbent on us thru W.P.B. wards “scrap purposes.”7 The crown [War Production Board] orders, to also shortage eventually worked itself out, collect all small cans wherever we col- but the OBC did not end its efforts in lect #10 cans and we must locally the recycling campaign. whenever requested, assist in collec- tion of household prepared cans. So in At the beginning of the tin scrap cam- the yard at the Brewery you can see paign, Peter G. Schmidt informed his the Thurston County car-loading bin. Titled “What shall we do with TIN CANS?”, this flyer was distributed to home- makers to encourage their participation in the scrap metal campaign. Image courte- sy of Olympia Tumwater Foundation: Olympia Brewing Company, General Files, Subject Files, Tin Can Scrap Campaign, Box 35. 5 Pictured here in 1943 at the brewery is one of two cars of tin collected under the supervision of the Thurston County Salvage Committee. The car contained 45,000 pounds of scrap tin and was destined for the reclaiming depot in San Francisco.